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On Aug 28, 6:09pm, Robert Dewar wrote: > Subject: Re: Disk slower in 755CX > Pentium 32-bit or 64-bit > > this argment is simply one of terminology. What does an n-bit processor mean: > > n-bit addresses > n-bit registers > n-bit integer arithmetic > n-bit internal data paths > n-bit external address bus > > ??? > > depending on how you answer this, you get different views, normally I would > agree that the Pentium is a 32-bit processor, but it just depends on your > definitions. >-- End of excerpt from Robert Dewar Any basic computer architectures textbook (Henessey et al, Hwang, ...) will describe the architecture of a chip by its internal datapath width -- which in almost all cases is the same as the register width and the integer arithmetic width. So the currently available 64-bit processor are the DEC 2106x (Alpha), the MIPS R4x00 and R6000, and the PowerPC 620. The P5x's and the P6 are 32-bit architectures. BTW, Intel refers to the P5 and P6 architectures as 32-bit in their technical references. Robert George Army Research Laboratory